A boy with a mess of brown hair leaps over a toy truck and metal bat, and for a moment, Colin Wolfe is alive. 

For a moment, he is 7 years old again and spends his days playing baseball, comforting his little sister and sharing Sabbath dinner with his family. For a moment, there is no such thing as the Iraq war, and two Marines never showed up at his parents’ Manassas home early one morning to tell them that their 19-year-old son was gone.

U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-New Jersey) has been named co-chairman of the Congressional Arts Caucus, a bipartisan group promoting the arts on the federal level.

"In more than a decade, the Lee’s Summit Arts Council has helped shape the community’s direction in entertainment and cultural offerings, complimenting fast growth of housing and shopping centers, all the pieces which made Lee’s Summit one of the region’s booming cities.

The city now has a community symphony and theater group, building on longtime support for arts programs in schools.

"For the week, a section of the General Assembly Building has been transformed into an art gallery, with paintings, woodwork, quilts and other pieces for sale—all made by children and teens serving sentences in the Department of Juvenile Justice."

"The Minnesota Orchestra is far from alone: Symphonies in Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Chicago have all experienced strikes and/or lockouts over the past two years, and those in many smaller cities, including Miami, Honolulu, and Albuquerque, have folded altogether. In the spring of 2011, the Philadelphia Orchestra became the nation's first major orchestra to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy—it emerged from restructuring last July with 10 fewer musicians, and a 15 percent pay cut for the remaining players."

"A measure that proposed to eventually eliminate all funding to the Oklahoma Arts Council won't advance this year, the bill's author said.

Rep. Josh Cockroft said House Bill 1895 has been assigned to the House of Representatives Rules Committee, where it is unlikely to get a hearing this year."

"Gov. Nikki Haley wants to fold the S.C. Arts Commission into the State Museum, a move that would eliminate the arts group’s board and director but leave intact its grants program.

Asked about Haley’s proposal by state House budget writers, Ken May, the commission’s executive director, said, 'It eliminates the Arts Commission, so you can imagine I’m not the biggest fan of that.'

Haley has proposed severe cuts to the Arts Commission before."

"A new national survey of nonprofit executives suggests it isn’t just the uncertain economy that’s making it hard for charities—including arts and culture groups—to meet their fundraising goals. The research says there’s something fundamentally amiss with the way many of them go about courting donors."

"A bill filed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives proposes all funding to the Oklahoma Arts Council (OAC) be eliminated.

The legislation, written by state Rep. Josh Cockroft, R-Tecumseh, would reduce state government funding to the OAC each fiscal year by 25 percent, eventually ending the appropriation in 2017."

01/15/2012

NY: 1 Percent for Culture Campaign Begins

HarlemWorldMag.com 01/08/2013

It is commonly said among artists that they chose to work in the Twin Cities for the quality of life and the general health of the cultural community. It certainly isn't for the money.

'The majority of artists are not, quote, making a living from their art,' said Vickie Benson, arts program director at the McKnight Foundation. 'They are cobbling work together not so they can have opulent lives but so they can cover the basics.'

"Longview Museum of Fine Arts (LMFA) is bringing art education back into Pine Tree schools.

Through a partnership between the museum and district, representatives from LMFA go to the intermediate and primary schools on a regular basis to provide arts education."

Leading as an executive director rarely has a roadmap. Madison Cario sheds some light on how to be intentional in their first 100 days at the helm as Executive Director of the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) in Portland, Oregon.

Waiting in line at the DMV is something all Americans dread. But the Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration has partnered with Prince George’s County Memorial Library System to place a short story kiosk, call Short Edition, in the Beltsville MVA branch. 

Founded 20 years ago, this mission driven organization performs in venues randing from concert halls to correctional facilities. Sarasa includes presentations specifically at youth facilities into its regular season schedule.

Every summer, from Armed Services Day to Labor Day, Blue Star Museums offer free admission to active duty military personnel and their families, including National Guard and Reserve. This year, the Blue Star Museums program begins on Saturday, May 18, 2019 and will end on Monday, September 2, 2019. 

The MTA Arts & Design program is being heralded as a leader in gender diversity in both musuem-based and public art collections. A longtime member of Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Network, MTA Arts & Design has a 48 percent representation of female artists in thier public art collection compared to a representation of 13 percent from top museums across the U.S.

In Maryland, the designation comes with tax benefits for artists to live, work, and perform within the district, as well as tax credits for new construction or renovations of certain buildings that create live-work spaces for artists or other creative enterprises. 

Springboard for the Arts and the Helicon Collaborative have co-developed and released a new report and framework called Creative People Power that begins from the premise that arts and culture are “a renewable natural resource for building communities.”

How does the first Latinx performer to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award continue to top her own accomplishments? By earning a Peabody Career Achievement Award, of course!

Dancing makes people happy. Its energy and endorphins have a way of embracing positivity. Or, if you’re Instagrammer Donté Colley, then dancing can quite literally support, highlight, or shimmy happiness, love, and gratitude.

“The Embrace,” a proposed sculpture by two Americans for the Arts 2019 Annual Convention keynote speakers — Artist Hank Willis Thomas and Michael Murphy, co-founder and executive director of MASS Design Group —  has been selected for a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King in Boston Common.

The goal is to engage and empower arts supporters to become arts activists in order to advocate for increased public funding for the arts and educate legislators to the impact of arts, culture and creativity in California. An Advocacy Day and rally is scheduled for April 23, 2019 in Sacramento.